


Jenny

by 48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Lucifer is Jess and Nick, Lucifer is mostly Jess though, Lucifer's Cage, M/M, PWP that turns into plot thanks to Sam's wonderful compartmentalization skills, Trans Sam Winchester, WIP, abusive relationship dynamics, halfway done hopefully, if you see this I posted it early by accident instead of hitting the draft button
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:07:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24951292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue/pseuds/48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue
Summary: Sam finds ways to derail what Hell has in store for him, although he can't say knowledge spares him anything in the pit.(If you see this I posted this early by accident because I hit the wrong button and didn't notice, as deleting this message is part of making sure I finish this fic)
Relationships: Lucifer/Sam Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	Jenny

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InHisImage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InHisImage/gifts).



> chapter title a really awesome song by the studio killers even though it does not fit this fic AT ALL but it's a good and catchy song and that's all that matters... although it was that or I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend by Girl in Red because I also just really like evil, evil irony and they both match the kind of yearning pining feelings I think Sam has for Jess but is completely horrible with all the au stuff I threw in there.
> 
> I'm gonna be honest, I don't totally know how to write bdsm but I will do my best to write in the spirit of things.
> 
> Thank you for all that you've written and for all the wonderful discussions and for helping me also get back into things I love that I've been struggling with and for being so kind to me. It really means a lot! Also you are really talented and cool and it means so much that you like my writing!
> 
> (for anyone reading this, usual Sam Lucifer au stuff with Lucifer as Jess applies)
> 
> HI IF YOU ARE READING THIS I POSTED IT TOO EARLY BY ACCIDENT AND DIDN'T NOTICE AND IT AIN'T DONE SO PLEASE IGNORE IT FOR NOW THANKS!!!!
> 
> currently being worked on very slowly

"You don't look like you're really into this, Sammy." Lucifer mocks, tying the rope around Sam's wrist tighter. Sam flinches away from teeth too close to his neck and swallows on autopilot, and Lucifer sees fit to nuzzle Sam's Adam's apple, stubble scratchy and coarse in both threat and promise. "Which is a shame, really. I know you like it rough..."

Nick's nail-bitten, calloused hands follow the curve of Sam's spine, down his pelvis, a thumb rubbing the inside of his thigh and the sensitive stretch of skin between his legs.

"But maybe that's on me, with how I've been neglecting your needs lately... Not enough foreplay to keep you firing on all cylinders, right? And that won't do. We're here because of _you_ , after all. Only fair to keep all eyes on the star of the show-"

Sam bites the inside of his mouth and closes his eyes, not caring if he draws blood. He knows what that tone means, and knows all the things it could have in store for him...

And the weight on Sam's chest lightens, the bruising pressure of Nick's knees and rough feeling of half-unzipped jeans giving way to soft, shaved calves and soft hair with nothing else between them, and Lucifer's voice changes to something light and feminine and more familiar to Sam than anything before Hell.

Sam shuts his eyes even tighter, throat aching. If anything, this is worse, because it hurts more than anything else Lucifer could threaten him with.

"Would this help?"

And then Jessica's arms are wrapping around Sam, and all he can breathe in is her- her hair falling around his head, her lips to his forehead, Sam's head buried in her chest. And Lucifer scoots closer, straddling him tighter, one hand on Sam's dick to better guide it up inside the body the Devil has seen fit to wear again.

"You like that, baby?" Jessica's voice is thin and breathy and Sam holds on for dear life because by God and everything, despite every manipulation and condescension and punishment, and for all the pain and agony Lucifer has seen fit to carve into him over and over and over, Sam missed this, missed _her_ and everything they were together and everything they used to be the sound of her and everything makes Sam ache.

"That's it, kiddo." Jessica's voice is soft, not biting or sarcastic in the ways it could otherwise be as they settle into the usual way they used to fit together, before Sam thought his life could all go up in flames in every single way.

It's very familiar, the domesticity.

And while it's still poison, and an even more potent implement Lucifer can use as a weapon, Sam knows he will find a way to deflect that and twist it into something he can endure. He's good at that.

Enduring.

Turning the tide on the Devil itself, because if there's one thing Lucifer was never quite able to mask it's how the idea of love and surrender and moving on always eluded him.

(Sam doesn't bother with moving on. You never move on, not really. You just keep going, however aimless, even if you don't know where.

You'll end up someplace entirely different, eventually. Even if it feels the same.)

That's what being human is. Changing, even when things appear not to change, or change too fast, and the whole world melts like bleeding watercolors into something you can't pin down or escape or comprehend.

(Maybe that's what Lucifer hates the most and punishes deep down, after all. All the ways Sam was too human, and not in the ways he needed Sam to be.)

The general way torture works in the cage is consistent in its mutability. And much like the routine of walking on eggshells not knowing when a wave of new torment is going to give way to some false kindness or attempt to ease off as to make the next lesson hit harder, Sam never feels like he's on solid footing, and that floating away inside your own head doesn't really work quite right, because Lucifer just finds another way in.

That being said, Sam does try his best to distract himself when he can. From what, he isn't always sure. Everything. Things he doesn't always has names for. Because the Cage, while torture, while degrading, while named in an apt fashion for it's purpose, is in one singular way, comforting.

Sure, Sam might not be getting out. Sure, Sam might be trapped with Lucifer and tortured forever and beyond even the confines of what could be called eternity.

But part of him- perhaps a selfish part that Sam isn't sure is selfish or just the only remnant of a long-standing betrayal- feels some sort of relief. Because the stakes, the parameters, for all their limitless potentials for hurt, are consistent in one thing, the very thing that makes Sam's longstanding existence starkly secure in how much he's going to be the focus of all that endless fury and hurt until the end of time.

And that's the fact that Lucifer is trapped here, forever, too, unable to hurt anyone else, and that he's as powerless as Sam has always feared he'd always be. That as much as Sam is a prisoner, the Devil is his prisoner, too, in all the ways he thought he could make Sam see things his way and still didn't get what he wanted, in all the ways he'd tried to make Sam powerless to resist topside and all the ways Sam's life had been one long string of manipulation after manipulation, driving them to the end of things.

The world and it's continued welfare is the one silver lining that might not do much for Sam and his present and eternal circumstances, but it stops him from breaking apart completely. Things don't need to feel real or concrete anymore for them to still matter.

And in some ways, it means Sam's pain and fear and hurt and exhaustion can bow into something else. Into some approximation of something that isn't quite survival, isn't quite nostalgia, too worn out for horror and anticipation and already burnt out on disgust and hurt and all the raw things that would never be fixed.

In some ways, salvation is giving up, not just because Sam knows he is choosing to do so but because he knows how not to be caged, even when trapped inside. That by having nothing else to give the Devil doesn't have power in the last place it matters- deep, deep inside Sam's soul, however frayed, however used and battered- and that all Sam's life, people have been trying to keep him contained, in the boxes they wanted him in.

Sam is used to being trapped. Choosing his battles.

But he also knows how not to play, even when it seems there is no third option.

Then again, maybe he's just that good at rationalizing things he can't change or control to try and adapt and keep on keeping on.

Sam doesn't really sweat the minutiae, not when there's so much else to push down and try to pretend isn't happening.

Not when Lucifer is all too present and all Sam can taste is a kiss and a tongue against his and the heat of the breath of his skin, the back of Jessica's heels pressing into his ankles as she rides him, Lucifer keeping pace, only it isn't patient or if the calculation is there it gives way to the moment, because that feels more real and more like so many memories than anything else he could add to the mix.

And Sam gasps and strains against the bed, hands balling into fists over the sheets until Jessica's tight grip stops bruising his wrists and trade for her fingers twining between his own, and Sam finds himself weak in all the ways a human body is when another body is on top of you, not because he knows that taking it and feeling it is what Lucifer wants but because it's familiar in how it used to be comfortable, in how Lucifer seeks out everything Sam used to crave, and Sam couldn't stop himself anyway, even if it was worth trying, and there's no room for hurt or shame even if the fear never leaves, even if it feels good and horrible for how good Lucifer always makes this, when he wants to.

Sam tries to think of other memories, with Jess, ones that aren't rooted in physical intimacy or control, when Lucifer gets like this.

Tries to remember what living together was like, the light in the window, the sound of traffic, the way they'd lean on each other in the middle of the night and listened to the rain-

Tries to remember the kind of obstinate hope and optimism they used to have together, so the loss of control and the way Lucifer draws out Sam's own flushed face and short breaths and all the other ways Sam surrenders so that it doesn't feel so impossible to endure.

(Even if it always is, in some ways. Even if it always will be, because of what Sam can mourn over what used to be all their own, and not a matter of life or death or the world or the Apocalypse or personal grudges or family, in all the ways he'd thought they'd broken away from their broken homes and started anew together.)

Tries not to miss what is only ever a means to make the loss more apparent, to make it more personal, to condemn Sam for both loving too much and not loving Lucifer enough the way he wanted.

\--

Lucifer can read the writing on the wall. Can see Sam drifting and slipping out of focus inside his own head already, even as he tries to keep him present.

Normally, it would offend the Devil that his brand of eternal punishment isn't being paid attention to or that Sam isn't drowning in the way he wants. (Well, Sam is always drowning in some form or another, down here, but he should still be unable to avoid the observance of how much he's expected to suffer at a given moment.)

The question, however, is less how and more why. Getting to the root of what new, temporary stopgap Sam is using to try and be all stoic despite not really being that at all, or figuring out if he needs to make things less intense and kinder so the lesson gets better drilled into Sam later, with more violence and begging and understanding.

Which means it's time he cast a wider net. Makes sure Sam remains a participant and not thinking of himself as an observer even when he can't dissociate from his body very well right now, made sure he picks his brains in the right way to get Sam back with the program.

"Would you rather have a go? Would that make you feel better?"

Lucifer's holds out Jessica's arms, rope in hand.

Sam doesn't take it.

\--

Instead, Sam pushes Lucifer down, lightly, and lays down on top of Jessica's prone body, and just lays there, one elbow bent, chin tucked in the crook of her neck, one hand lighting on the stretch marks dotting her waist, and doesn't flinch even when Lucifer's stray, bitten-to-the-quick fingers still rub a line light up Sam's thigh in what might be a threat, or merely empty, for not deigning a proper verbal reply.

Sometimes, it's harder to drown out Lucifer's words than his actions, because Sam can predict that every physical encounter that persists between them will one day just be another method of hurt, however gentle or otherwise it would pretend to be before it gave way to more violence.

Words are more dangerous.

Words mean Lucifer is getting ideas, and using Sam's reactions to best pick his next method of trying to find a new way in so that Sam can't cast him out ever again.

And if Sam doesn't get a say in whether his body or his mind will be used, he will make sure he's being used in a way he can build some sort of veneer of being okay.

Things might never be okay ever again, but he can take comfort in what was once, in the past, and what he'd valued. He can take comfort in the person he thought Jess, thought Lucifer was, even if it isn't real and even if it's just going to be another way to get to him later.

What matters is keeping himself afloat. Taking the small mercies or forcing things to become a small mercy even if intended otherwise, no matter how much Lucifer pretends any action is intended to the contrary.

(Then again, maybe Sam finding some way to not hate this isn't just a coping mechanism, but a way of hurting Lucifer, too. Lucifer knew Sam loved him. Knew that gentleness, knew that loss, knew how much Sam did to try and right what was done to the person he thought he'd loved, only to find out it was just part of something else Lucifer orchestrated.

Maybe the knowledge that Sam still chose otherwise and wouldn't find this one violation as much a mindfuck as intended is some sort of revenge, of pushback, however small and ineffective in the grand scheme of things.)

Sam says nothing. (Silence, too, is it's own kind of rebellion, and if nothing else, Sam knows how to rebel even when there's little reason save what spark of self-respect he has left keeping it alive in the face of what is ultimately futile.)

He does not kiss her lips. Just buries his head in the crook of her neck and takes his arms and wraps them around her waist instead and doesn't move and pretends that this is what once was and will never really ever be untouched by what came after.

And Lucifer lets him hold his breath, motionless, unable to move on and raise a hand against the one he'd loved so much (even as Sam still wanted to rip the very same person limb from limb in every other way, for all the ways he had allowed Lucifer to let him be broken in this way and the next).

Love was funny like that, because Sam had loved so deeply and still did and yet he could not ignore all the ways Lucifer tried to make him tear his own heart out and every part of him to pieces to become the thing the Devil needed Sam to be.

Sam could never hurt her. Even if Jess hadn't really been real- it still meant too much, whether she was Lucifer or not. Sam had loved her more than he loved anything, even with every price he had to pay, now and forever.

And he could not tarnish that memory, even here in Hell, where nothing was sacred except the Devil and Michael and even then they were forsaken.

The quiet lingers. Unsettled. Sam isn't sure if Lucifer is calculating his next move or all too aware and familiar with Sam's mental processes and temperament to expect Sam to take some kind of bait in order to engage eventually.

And yet... While Sam knows silence is wise, nostalgia and exhaustion and wanting to change things means he doesn't do what is expected in these situations, even if that, too, is predictable. He chooses the exact opposite of what has served his survival in Hell, and trades it for an old habit he never kicked from those years topside he barely remembers right.

Sam doesn't pretend everything is fine when it isn't. But he still tells himself it will be fine, because he'll make it through the other side (somehow, he doesn't need to be concrete when time isn't real, and fine is such an arbitrary method of calculation with ill-defined scale to begin with) and he can't control whatever happens next no matter what he does. And while nothing in Hell is boring, Sam doesn't want the routine to settle into what he knows will be, in some ways, agonizingly predictable in all the ways that he, too, probably always is to an Archangel, so very bored in Hell and too used to using Sam like a live, wriggling moth pinned by it's wings on a corkboard and ready to watch it keep squirming.

(And, while he would never admit it, in some ways, Sam not fighting and accepting this and melting in the arms of yet another mockery of love that wasn't quite so kind and more mundane in execution than intended, but wasn't all the divine retribution it could be, throws Lucifer for a loop, even if he knows how Sam rationalizes things. The fact that it isn't an act, despite how much it still hurts Sam, always lands a bit too true, and that rankles, in it's honesty.

Then again, not having the mundane and dangling it over Sam's head would always land, too, for the so-called freak who just wanted a home and got it but at the price of something else.)

Lucifer waits as Sam clears his throat, and asks, brazen, undeterred, with all the casual inflections and ease they'd used to have in a way that can't be faked-

"What was it like, before?"

"Pardon?" Lucifer, for once, or perhaps not once but yet another time too many, allows himself to be surprised. (And while part of Lucifer might've been fond of Sam's habit of surprising him, once, that is dwarfed by other transgressions, now, an ocean with little else left but malice and hurt and the need to make Sam feel every bit of poison Lucifer felt, too).

"The beginning. I mean, you already know everything about my life. And I thought I knew enough about yours once. But even after everything... Your attempts to... persuade me to be yours, and even before that... When you were Jess, you couldn't tell me everything. But I know what you are, now. I've seen you. But I never asked about that." Sam says, and rambles. Open. Guileless. Perhaps wondering if bringing up the time before, forbidden knowledge with all the fights Michael and Lucifer still tangle in, is a miscalculation, or perhaps not, because maybe holy retribution isn't quite as painful for Sam inside his heart than what was when they were together and free and good was, once, in all the ways this dredges that up.

Completely changing the subject of old wounds to something else, like the banality of what they once had and what they are allows for such intimacy and prying, even though it does, except Sam isn't the one whose supposed to be driving this train and he knows it.

Then again, he is engaging. And Lucifer can work with that. (And part of him- a part Lucifer won't acknowledge, the part that still thinks he was right for Sam to be his because for all the ways Sam fell off his pedestal of what he was meant to be, Lucifer, perhaps finds he likes the break in their war that's less a war than an attrition of only hurt feelings and no end. That he can pretend he is fine and _this_ is fine and that Sam isn't going on a meathook at the end of the day because that's only fair, in this new game, when they're being nostalgic and close in a way they haven't been, not really, not since Lucifer was Jess and not angry at Sam like he was everything else.)

Not- _why are you like this, why did you choose this, why this particular torture today_ , why not anything more relevant to the current itinerary- but lightly asking, _what was your life like. What part of you did you not let me see, if you wanted me to see everything and weep for all the ways I wronged you_.

Yeah, Lucifer will bite. They both know Sam leverage is only situational and temporary, and if there's one thing they have is curiosity and somehow, a need for change when everything is, in some ways, the same, no matter how different and creative Lucifer gets. (You can only do so much inside a box, even if you are the God of that box ruling over your subjects and the ones you love with an iron fist.)

"Congratulations. Only you would distract yourself from this with questions about the beginning of all creation. You're lucky I love you." Lucifer hums, voice dry, and maybe bothers to rolls Jessica's eyes. (Sam isn't sure, because he isn't looking, still curled up on the Devil's almost-favorite borrowed shoulder.)

Sam knows what remains unsaid, though. Lucifer likes an audience, captive or not. And he always did like feeling listened to, then and now. However much good it did for anything, which was nil.

But there are some things that don't change, and Sam does suppose, in this corner of Hell, that that constitutes as comforting. Victim or not, family was something they always did talk about without details, back in the day.

Now that they know each other's family's too well, Sam finds some attempts at... not closure, but understanding, in the hope it might alleviate something. Or at least give Sam a means to feel some kind of twisted compassion for his torturer and the one he used to love and still loved in some terrorized way, which he'd prefer to hatred, which Lucifer used better to cause him all the more pain.

"What do you want to know?" Jessica's voice turns breezy, too light.

"Everything. I don't know. Whatever you want to start with. I just want to know how things used to be." Sam says with a shrug, not making an effort to move from where they lie together, not moving even when Lucifer's arm wraps tighter around him and a palm presses into the small of his back, fingers tapping absently over his skin.

Maybe Sam knows it's pointless. Maybe he's just too tired. Maybe he wants to be as minuscule an observation even when he knows Lucifer's attentions will only ever be riveted to him, and the details, anyway.

 _Why,_ Lucifer can't help but think aloud, _when you won't spare either of us any pity? You know what I am. You made your choice._

**Does it matter, why?**

_Funny, considering the question seems to bother you so much. Seems to be the whole reason we're down here-_

**Maybe it's not about why. Maybe I just want to see you clearly.**

_Oh? You don't want to focus on memory lane? Want to make this all abstract, from the time before it was just you and me?_

**No. I loved... Love you. And it seems to me it's only fair to recognize you for everything you are, to see things from your side.**

_You didn't take my side._ The storm of anger passes, like a threatening thundercloud, but it doesn't break.

 **I never said I knew everything. I don't think I was wrong,** and Sam holds his breath and knows he's on thin ice but keeps going, **But I don't think I ever got the full picture, not properly. And I know... when you've been adrift or cast out or used to something for so long, it's easy to almost forget who you used to be underneath. Sometimes I wonder if you even really remember the time before it all went wrong. Or if you've just pushed it down, like I used to.**

_Oh? You sure you aren't just trying out some armchair psychology to rationalize what I've got planned? Trying to make sense of it all, so you can make up reasons for why you deserve everything I've got in store for you?_

Sam, bull-headed as always once embracing a given purpose, doesn't let Lucifer change the subject.

**No. But I think you do deserve to be seen, to have that recognized from someone who still wants to understand, even after everything else. Everyone deserves to be known by the people who they're close to, good and bad and everything that comes with it.**

_That's one way of thinking about it._

Lucifer considers, mind whirring, trying to keep up with the contradiction that is Sam, because, for all Sam's faults, he isn't being so generous just to try and win Lucifer over or try and sue for clemency. He just... Is. He's just that open and direct and calm about having sympathy and love for someone he hates yet still clings to, as if every prayer and supplication Lucifer eked out of him could be forgiven. Like he always manages to be no matter how much Lucifer breaks him and no matter how proud that makes Lucifer despite his better judgement, no matter how much he hates that fact of Sam's psyche, too.

Sam doesn't say, however, that being known is in any way absolution.

But he does remain magnanimous in his limited, human patience, and then finally deigns to speak aloud. Like there's something important, about that distinction. About the choice to talk about it.

"I never got to know everything. You only told me of what went wrong. You never told me about the time before that. You saw everything, with me and my family. The good. The bad. You were there after I left, to pick up all the pieces afterwards. And while you've told me your familial woes before, in all those bids to convince me, the fact is, you never went into detail, and I wasn't really listening. But I am now. All I wanted once was to know you, all of you-"

"You already have seen-"

"It's not the same. I'm not... I don't want to know it from you possessing me but just... You never talk about it. And we used to talk about everything. We used to just... understand each other. Even when we didn't have words. Or when we didn't need them."

"And you miss that."

"I think, that as someone who loved you... Maybe, if we're doing this... Maybe I just want it to feel like that. And maybe it's the least I can do, considering everything."

"Sympathy for little old me, then, even when you're my own personal lil' Picasso-"

**It's not-**

_Nostalgia, then? Compassion? Pity? What, Sam? What do you think this is?_ Jessica's face almost becomes a sneer, her nose crinkling and brow furrowed. _Mercy? You think I need that from the likes of you?_

Sam's careful frown is small, the light imprint of it buried in the edges of where his lip turns down against Jessica's collarbone, every detail so contained but still so very vivid, just like his eyelashes do when they flutter shut.

**No. Maybe it's just fair. Because we loved each other. Maybe we owe each other that. Maybe it's just that I loved you and that's what you do for people you love, is listen even when you don't understand or agree but because you cared, once. Even if neither of us deserves it.**

_Only you, Sam. Only you would think of this as a kind of justice. As closure._ Jessica's mouth tips up at the the corners, thin lipped smile more concession than a more habitual warning of what could become a snarl. _But alright. Have it your way._

Lucifer lets out a small laugh, Jessica's twang of punctuation as distinct as the way Lucifer's voice rumbles in the back of Nick's throat.

"You want me to tell you a fucking story, Sam?"

"Sure, why not." Sam mumbles.

A hand slides through his hair.

_Well. It's not like we're going anywhere._

\--

"I suppose I wasn't always angry at everything. I know, hard pill to swallow."

"I wasn't going to say that."

"Whatever."

\--

"What happened?"

\--

"The Darkness was everything my father..."

\--

Other days, when the compartmentalization fails and Sam finds himself huddled under what could be a bed, could not, but he can't move and he's hugging himself close and shaking and all he can do is pray, and not even to a God who he knows isn't even listening even when he'd rather delude himself otherwise, but to the person who he'd loved so completely and been destroyed by so completely that Sam doesn't know what shame or dignity could matter any more, because all there is is the extant, constant fear of not being good enough, of this being forever, of nothing mattering except being what Lucifer wants and it is breaking Sam apart and Sam cries from the sheer exhaustion of feeling it all the time and having no release-

Only for a hand to clutch Sam's own, another hand wiping the tears and Sam can't look, he can't-

And then Lucifer is 

"I know it's hard, Sam. But I forgive you. It might not make it any easier. But I will always love you. And that's enough, isn't it? It has always been enough, for you-"

And Sam crumbles and lets himself be held, curled up on himself as the Devil whispers calming nonsense in his ears, hand in his hair, so gentle, like he'd never torn him apart in the first place.

Like it wasn't going to happen again and again, until Sam somehow fit into the shapes Lucifer needed him to contort into.

But maybe it could still be enough, if Sam somehow finds a way to make that his and not anyone else's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like this somehow became a minor character study of how you can overtly empathize with ppl who are not good for you and abusive when you love ppl to your own detriment and how that bad codependency takes root by accident but at the same time i feel like Sam doesn't have a lot of options in his position to survive the non-survivability of eternal damnation with his sort of ex for the purposes of this fic so... i guess it did it's job???

**Author's Note:**

> Sam: I'm going to interrupt your attempts to physically and emotionally torture and torment me and the memory of everything we had together with questions about the beginning of everything
> 
> Lucifer: Weird flex but seeing as I'm still the center of your attention, okay


End file.
